Le Chateaubriand is run by Iñaki Aizpitarte and from what little I can find out, he is an untrained, Basque cook who does not like using recipes and does not have a website, or cook book to his name.

Le Chateaubriand is ranked 11th in the world on the 2010 S.Pellegrino 50 best restaurants and part of its appeal is the fact that the prices are kept reasonable and its standard of food is very high. The reason why Aizpitarte can keep his prices reasonable is the fact that he keeps a prix fixe menu that changes daily and one of his intentions was creating a Restaurant where his friends can afford to eat.

On arrival the first thing noticed is the original interior. It feels like one has stepped back into an old school 1930′s Brasserie. This is combined with an avant garde approach to reconstructing the classics of food, that really amplifies the experience.

After a great evening and an experience that was unforgettable we walked out the door to a small crowd gathering, trying to get a place and Aizpitarte and his kitchen staff smoking while working the crowd. You can tell he loves the attention as a young, ambitious, revolutionist trying to create unorthodox cuisine in a classic city.

Food Highlights

A plate of thinly sliced beetroot, baby beetroot leaves and a highly complex, reconstituted jelly that was the size of a thumbnail. Every ingredient was kept very earthy and the jelly exploded in the mouth.

Veal was composed with granules of salt, accompanied by berries and an elaborate berry purée.

Everything tasted like it was plucked directly from the earth, like it had been chosen because of its nobility. I cannot ever forget tasting a slightly cooked piece of spring onion and feeling like it had, somehow been reinvented. Magic would be a fitting word for this. An explanation of the impossible.

The wines

First was a beautiful, crisp, dry Champagne to start.

Following, we had white Burgundy from Macon that was lovely, complex and viscous. It leaned toward tasting like a Riesling at first taste though as it warmed it developed the distinct characteristics of Chardonnay.

The final wine was a Beaujolais. It was full of life. It gathered in the mouth slowly then finished with multiple notes of intricacy. It was an amazing wine and since Paris my love of Beaujolais has grown.

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Looking back through my journal from the trip I came across my Le Chateaubriand experience that was dated 13 August 2010. I had In capitals and underlined after every paragraph ‘WHAT AN AMAZING NIGHT’ and that it was.

Price

85.00 Euro per person (approx.)

Getting there

Le Chateaubriand, 129 Avenue Parmentier, 75011 Paris, France

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Author: Keir

The place goes nuts on the weekend as does the price, pretty much same menu; tourist prices. Each meal we had was beautiful, perfect smoked salmon breakfast accompanied with twice cooked duck fat potatoes which seem to appear no matter how absent their presence on the menu, they are irresistible and unbelievably delicious and you’ll most likely eat the all’ of them. The Niçoise salad for lunch was also really beautiful, and you choose whether your tuna steak is served rare, medium or well done.

Highlights include, Niçoise salad, Joan Rivers out the front yelling ‘ Sweet heart, where the hell do you get a park around here’ from here Mercedes-Benz and the fact the laundry sinks in the bathroom look so amazing that you kinda want to spill your red wine down your front just to do a little ol’ fashion hand washing.

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Getting there
9 9th Avenue New York, NY 10014-1203, United States
(212) 929-4844

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Author: Emma

Daniel Rose came to Paris from Chicago to study at the American University and to learn about food (“I saved all my money so I could go out to eat”). After university, he enrolled in the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, then went on to study under chefs in Brittany, Guatemala, Italy and the US. Back in Paris, after three months at the famed Hôtel Meurice, he set out to open his own restaurant. “I heard all those great chefs complaining about personnel, poor ingredients, not making enough money, and I got rid of all the things I couldn’t control,” says Rose. “In addition to cooking, that’s something else I learned from them.”

We attended a tasting of wines from six artisanal French wine makers whom produce from vineyards from between 5 and 25 hectares, the tasting took place at Spring fronted by Sanfransican Josh Adler… I am an amateur but here are my thoughts…

REISLING                ‘Terroirs D’Alsace’                    Zind-Humbrecht                    2009

Wine maker Olivier Humbrecht, from Turckheim, Alsace. Master of Wine, of which there are less than 300 in the world.

Comments: A highly acidic, however perfectly balanced wine due to the sweetness and minerality, made from 100% Riesling from a sensational vintage.  The wine is made from vines planted on a granite rock hillside and the terroir is reflected in the bouquet. The wine was lovely and a perfect accompaniment with oysters. This is a young wine from a Grand Cru vineyard and this showed through in the tightness on the palette.

Cost: 18 € at Spring Boutique

Macon-Villages                                Guillemot-Michel                                                  2008

Wine maker Pierette et Marc Guillemot from Viré -Clessé, Bourgogne.

Comments: A good Chardonnay (100%) from Macon, well balanced, good fruit and acid and showing good maturity with perhaps it’s best yet to come.

Cost: 18 € at Spring Boutique

Cornas                                                    Michel                                                                     2006
Wine maker Robert Michel from Ardéche in Cornas is the fourth generation of the Michel family to work as a vigneron . He vinified his first wines in 1975 and gradually increased his vineyard holdings to slightly over 5 hectares. Robert Michel retired from wine making after this vintage.

Comments: Made from 100% Syrrah this wine was very dry, highly acidic and tannic, some may describe it as rustic, however to me it lacked balance, being too high in tannin and acid. Certainly not near as good as many of the Cornas wines that I’ve tasted at this stage in my wine journey.

Cost: 32 € at Spring Boutique

Morgon ‘Cote Du Py’                                    Foillard                                                    2009

Organic wine maker Jean Foillard  from Villiers-le-Morgon, Beaujolais.

Comments: This is a legendary wine around Paris at the moment and the word is you can’t get a better Beaujolais than this. His vineyard is close to Paris, which means Jean can do a weekly visit to the capital city to flaunt his drop. His vineyard sits on an inactive volcano and he has not used sulphur in his wine making for over 10 years. Made from 100% Gamay the wine was glorious, low in tannin, light bodied and perfectly rounded and would give some Burgundy’s a very good run for their money.

Cost: 20 € at Spring Boutique

Alsace Pinot Noir ‘Fronholz’                          Ostertag                                               2009

Wine maker Andre Ostertag from Epfig in Alsace is regarded as a poet wine maker and producers only 1-2 barrels of this wine per year and you must order 1 year ahead to get a chance at one of them.

Comments: Very fortunate to taste such a well regarded and rare wine from Alsace let alone a Pinot Noir, however the wine was more a novelty than a pleasure not bringing enough interesting nor pleasurable Pinot Noir characteristics to the table.
Cost: 27 € at Spring Boutique

Accompaniments:
- Oysters Prat an Coum with Grapefruit Jelly and Buckwheat
-Stuffed Apricots with Confit de Canette, Toute of Veal and Foie Gras
- Boudin Noir with baby radishes
-Chocolate Ganache’

Getting there
Spring Restaurant
6 Rue Bailleul
75001 Paris
01.45.96.05.72

Spring Boutique
52 Rue de l’Arbre Sec
75001 Paris
01.58.62.44.30
(Boutique only, no reservations)
mailto:contact@springparis.fr

Author: Emma